


A Universally Acknowledged Truth

by WanderingStella



Category: Bridgerton (TV), Bridgerton Series - Julia Quinn
Genre: Eavesdropping, F/M, Family Fluff, Idiots in Love, My First Fanfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:13:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28944240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanderingStella/pseuds/WanderingStella
Summary: Violet Bridgerton thought it would be kind to spend the afternoon entertaining her convalescing daughter-in-law. With Eloise and Colin in tow and ready for some light eavesdropping, Anthony and Kate apparently having an enormous row, some personal revelations, a couple of embarrassing questions and Newton the dog on the prowl for snacks, what could possibly go wrong?
Relationships: Anthony Bridgerton/Kate Sheffield
Comments: 13
Kudos: 115





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is very much based on book Anthony, rather than TV Anthony, so a rather more sympathetic character (IMO) and no Siena hanging around in the past. That said, the impressive sideburns will make an appearance in a later chapter! There are spoilers all over the place for 'The Viscount Who Loved Me' and also some small spoilers for the other Bridgerton series books.
> 
> Bridgerton belongs to Julia Quinn, but I am loving visiting her world.

Had it not been Milton’s afternoon off, it would never have happened. 

They would have rung the door-bell, been admitted by Anthony’s suave butler and their arrival announced, before enjoying the gracious hospitality of a sedate and poised Lord and Lady Bridgerton, (as much as any meeting of three Bridgerton siblings ever could be said to be sedate or poised or indeed gracious, even when moderated by their mother).

However, as it was Milton’s afternoon off, it came to pass that Violet’s well-meant decision to entertain her invalid daughter-in-law ultimately resulted in moments of embarrassment rivaling even her conversation with Daphne the night before her wedding. Meanwhile, Colin and Eloise obtained several months' worth of material for baiting Anthony.

Colin had been lolling around Bridgerton House in search of food and mischief, while Eloise was listlessly scribbling in her diary, which was why their mother recruited them into the “Let’s cheer up Kate” brigade. Neither minded. Even if Kate had not had the qualities which Eloise considered a perfect brew for modern womanhood – sharp intelligence, strong opinions and not appearing overawed by idiot men (specifically Anthony) –, she simply cared for her. Watching Kate bolster Penelope at the house party had won Eloise’s immediate regard; watching her attempt to wrestle with Anthony’s demons, selflessly loving him at his worst, had won her affection. Those she cared for, Eloise loved profoundly; Kate was now among that number.

Colin, meanwhile, considered the entire Anthony-Kate match as very much his handiwork, from his duplicity at the Hartside Ball via the Pall Mall game to his bestowing of wisdom upon Anthony at the club. Dabbling made him decidedly cheerful, in particular if it provided him with the chance to needle his eldest brother later on by bragging about how he had spent the afternoon entertaining a certain married lady in her bedroom.

Besides, sick rooms nearly always seemed to have food in them somewhere.

They were alighting from their carriage outside the house they still thought of as “Anthony’s bachelor lodgings” when Colin spotted Milton emerging from the servants’ exit.

“Milton! Milton!” he called out cheerfully. “Good afternoon!” 

In Benedict’s words, Milton was living proof that Anthony was capable of fidelity. For almost six years, stretching back to the legendary rake days, he had been the viscount’s valet. More than once Colin had been the grateful recipient of Milton’s expertise: a last-minute bed prepared to rescue him from skulking home on the walk of shame, hangover cures both noxious and potent, emergency restoration of clothes which had come off worse after revelry. After one particularly notable Bacchanal, Milton had been the unfortunate man holding the chamber pot while Anthony attempted to manoeuvre Colin’s mouth over it, both left aghast when Colin deposited three quarters of his evening’s drinking into the pot and the splattering remainder over them.

Nonetheless, the valet was well disposed towards the young man, as indeed he was to all of the family, and he smiled as he doffed his hat. “Good afternoon, Mr. Bridgerton. Lady Bridgerton. Miss Bridgerton.” 

“Is today your afternoon off, Milton?” 

“Yes, Mr. Bridgerton. I am going to visit my sister.”

“Lovely day for it. We had the same idea,” Colin added, gesturing towards the house, “visiting a sister, that is. Let us in, will you Milton?” he wheedled. “Save us bothering someone else?”

“Have you come to visit Lady Bridgerton?”

Violet gave a brief nod of affirmation. She rejoiced to see Anthony finally settled; with each passing week her gratitude grew, observing how that strange and patched up marriage appeared to be deepening into something of great worth. Still, it was strange to hear the title Lady Bridgerton refer to somebody else. “Yes, but please do not inconvenience yourself during your day off simply because some people are too impatient to wait for a door to be answered.” 

“It is no inconvenience, my lady.” He made his way up the stairs leading to the entrance, opened the door, nodded to them and waited respectfully inside, summoning a footman who was winding the clock in the hall to take their hats and coats. “I shall find Mr. Jackson.”

Violet smiled in acquiescence, but Eloise was less impressed. “Because the laws of polite society demand that walking from the square to Kate’s room in Anthony’s house, which we’ve all been to a thousand times, naturally involves at least three different members of staff to tend to our non-existent needs and fanfare our presence? Shall we summon the housekeeper, the cook and one of the maids as well?”

“Eloise, enough.” That said, waiting in a hall for the butler simply so their arrival could be announced to members of the family did strike Violet as faintly silly. “Please don’t summon Mr Jackson and I apologise for what must seem ingratitude, Milton. We do not need to be announced and shall make our own way to the Viscountess’s chamber.”

“Lady Bridgerton is not at present in her chamber, madam. You will find her in the family parlour on the first floor.” 

Violet frowned. “But why? Was she not supposed to be confined to bed rest for at least a month?”

Where Eloise’s outburst had raised not a flicker of reaction from the valet, here he was discombobulated. He groped for phrasing which was both respectful and honest. “Her ladyship was finding the confines of a single room not entirely to her taste and was strongly of the opinion that a change of room would be more conducive to her convalescence.”

Eloise snorted loudly and Colin smirked. “Strongly?” 

Milton said nothing. 

“Extremely strongly?” 

Still Milton maintained his silence. There were many Bridgertons, but only one who paid his wages. That was enough to purchase the discretion of the sphinx on this matter.

“I bet she was.” 

“How did she get there, Milton?” asked Violet with genuine concern. “Please tell me she did not attempt to walk.”

“No, my lady. His lordship was extremely adamant about that.”

The expression ‘If you even think about taking one step, I will tie you to the bed and lock the bloody door’ might have been heard without too much difficulty all over the second floor.

“Her ladyship was strongly of an opinion and his lordship extremely adamant of the opposite?” observed Colin.

“Astonishing!” countered Eloise.

“You could have sold tickets.” 

“Colin Bridgerton – ”

“I’d have paid.”

“And I.”

“Maybe we could have got Benedict round. Made a party of it.”

“ – be quiet this instant!” Violet was severely regretting having brought either of them. “She was assisted then, I presume?” 

“His lordship carried her downstairs, my lady,” he said, smiling at the memory. It was sweet and vivid: the lady’s face shining with loving confidence, his master cradling her as he cautiously negotiated every step and corner. As the household glided about their chores, they had all smiled in that moment. “If it is not impertinence, I think Lord Bridgerton had been finding the escritoire in the Viscountess’ room rather inconvenient and was also glad to move to the parlour.” With that observation, Milton bade them farewell and departed.

The three Bridgertons exchanged amused grins. On the one occasion they had seen him at Bridgerton House in the past three weeks, Anthony had been collecting a mountain of correspondence and the estate accounts books from his study, coyly vague about where he would complete the work. However much it might have been hidden away when they visited, it surprised none of them that it had been on the dainty desk in the room where Kate was recuperating. 

Finding their way to the parlour would not have been difficult even if Violet and her children had not known the house so well. Neither Anthony nor Kate were blessed with the quietest voices among the ton. Violet, Colin and Eloise had barely commenced the stairs when ebbs and flows of the couple’s conversation scampered down to them.

The dialogue rattled: Anthony determined, weighty, but growing in volume; Kate quick, probing, insistent. Then quiet, followed a mumble of something which might have been laughter, before the crackle of chatter ignited again. 

Eloise rolled her eyes at Colin behind their mother’s back. The entire family watched Anthony and Kate’s bickering with fascination. Colin and Benedict had come to the conclusion that debate between the two more was less intellectual sparring than some form of elaborate word-based foreplay. How was it, they pondered once, that when his siblings pertly challenged him, it was the single thing most likely to make Anthony throttle them; but when it was Kate he seemed to become more spectacularly and insatiably turned on than they’d ever seen him in his life. Benedict’s theory was that no matter how much he loved them – possibly because of how much he cared about them – Anthony was incapable of ever not seeing his siblings as his responsibilities, below him in the family hierarchy. Pushing towards thirty Benedict might be, but Anthony would always see a younger brother tagging after him and Simon at Eton. In Kate though, he saw an equal: in intelligence and vigour certainly, but also in courage and honour and love of family, the very things Anthony valued most. 

Colin’s theory was simpler: Kate was the only attractive woman Anthony had ever met in his life who wasn’t basically afraid of him. Apart from his relatives and it was only true part of the time for them. 

As they continued ascending, words and phrases formed themselves more audibly. Then more alarmingly. “An eager interest in that gentleman’s concerns.” Anthony’s tone was clear: menacing, simmering on the edge of anger, almost febrile. Kate was too fast to be followed, but spiky in the phrases which leapt out: “his misfortunes”, “of your infliction.”

Violet paused two steps short of the landing, frowned and turned to Colin and Eloise. Neither looked entirely comfortable.

Then they heard it again: a noise which, regardless of their overhearings, was undeniably like laughter, followed by a couple of low, inaudible sentences, a bubbling giggle and silence. 

Eloise shook her head. “Them!” It was astonishing how much eloquence she could pack into a single monosyllable. 

Violet was inclined to agree, although she did not say it. Teasing then presumably, however unlikely it might appear. Sometimes she could make no sense of her son at all.

But then Anthony started to speak once more. And when he did, all three of his relatives halted as though they had been punched.

His tone was haughty and brutal. It dripped entitlement, spite and arrogance. “Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and just. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections?” 

Violet started to tremble, utterly appalled. Eyes wide and filling with tears, she turned to Colin.

He was white with fury. “I’m going to kill him. Good God, I’m going to rip his bloody head off.” 

Eloise reacted differently. Her nose and eyes crinkled in simple puzzlement, while she pursed her lips. “I know those words. I know them.”

On the invective came. “To congratulate myself on the hope of relations, whose condition in life is so decidedly below my own.” 

“Oh Anthony,” cried Violet. “How can you?” She turned to the others. “We should leave. We should not be here listening.”

“And abandon Kate, Mother?” hissed Colin. “Let her endure him being a complete and utter bastard?” It was a measure of Violet’s distress that she made no comment about his language in front of Eloise. “He deserves to be taken out and thrashed!” 

“Colin!”

“Mother, listen to him! It’s odious!”

Eloise started to flap at them. “Mama, Colin, stop! I don’t think – ”

Violet ignored her. “For her sake, Colin! For Kate! Imagine her embarrassment and mortification. You know how proud she is. Take him to task later certainly. It is despicable. Take Benedict with you, take the Duke too if you want – ”

“Mama, I’m certain – ”

“Please, Eloise. Colin, we cannot humiliate – ” 

“Sssh!” Eloise hushed them urgently. She had proceeded onto the landing, close to the now silent parlour.

Anthony’s voice was heard once again. “Well?” It was entirely changed. The drawl was slow and affectionate, laced with mischief.

“I think it is just a game,” whispered Eloise, gazing at the half-opened door.

“Do you need a clue, Lady Wife of Mine?” 

“No! Be quiet!” If a voice can be said to be pouting, Kate’s was.

“Are you certain, Madam? If it is too difficult a challenge for you, a clue could be forthcoming.” 

“Stop it!” Kate’s command was as furious as Newton’s enthusiastic bounding could be said to be terrifying. Then she spoke, tentatively. “If you suppose – ”

“No.”

“You could not have – ”

“No-ooo.” He was clearly chuckling now.

“What on earth are they doing?” whispered Violet, completely bewildered now.

Eloise shrugged. “I’m sure I recognise those words though,” she mouthed.

“Oh Kate,” observed her husband. “Oh, Kate, where is your victory now?”

“Be quiet, you wretch!” She tried again. “Mr. Da – ”

“Got it!” cried Eloise to herself, at the exact moment her eldest brother replied, “Alas, still no. I shall give you a clue.”

“I don’t want one.”

“You – ”

“Not another word!”

“You are – ” This time the words were extremely muffled, as though a hand had been clamped over Anthony’s mouth. Even smothered, they could hear him hooting with laughter.

Kate gave a little growl of frustration.

“You are mistaken – ”

“You are mistaken Mr Darcy if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way than as it spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you had you behaved in a more gentleman like manner you could not have made me the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it your arrogance your conceit and your selfish disdain for the feelings of others I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry,” she galloped. “That’s it, isn’t it? I win, don’t I?”

“More or less,” replied Anthony. “I am too dizzy from listening to that to check.”

Kate was gleeful. “My prize please, Husband!”

What the prize was the Bridgertons within the parlour did not say, but the squelchy plosive of lips meeting was so unmistakable the Bridgertons on the landing could make a fairly accurate guess.

“I knew I recognised it,” said Eloise triumphantly. “It’s that novel by Miss Austen, Mama. Penelope and I read it last year.”

“A novel?” Violet felt slightly faint.

“It’s terribly funny. I knew Kate had excellent taste. Well, apart from about Anthony obviously.”

“It was just a game?”

Eloise nodded. “And one which Kate seems to have won, which is clearly the perfect outcome.” 

“Hang on,” said Colin. “Anthony’s reading romance novels?”

“It’s extremely good!” It is hard to have an argument when you are condemned to whispering in near silence, but Eloise and Colin Bridgerton were not to be cowed by such inhibiting factors as audibility.

“But a romance novel! By a woman!”

Eloise huffed and gave misogynist number three of the family up as a bad job. Instead, she tiptoed over to the door of the parlour and, hidden by the jamb, peered in. As she watched, still amused, something changed. A smile of extraordinary tenderness blossomed on her face, as she beckoned to her mother and brother. “Come here.”

Violet flustered. “Perhaps it would still be better if we slipped away and returned some time when we are expected.”

But Colin had joined Eloise now. On his face was the same peculiar combination of mirth and gentleness. He shook his head to Violet. “It would not, mother. Most definitely it would not.”


	2. Chapter 2

The private parlour comprised two distinct spaces within the one room. Near the door was a gleaming oval table and a bureau, its tambour top pushed back. Both the bureau’s desk and its top were covered with neat, substantial mounds; on the desk densely written Parliamentary papers and on the top a stack of completed letters and some heavy accounts ledgers. A cravat lay dolefully on top of the ledgers, seemingly abandoned in despair at some stage.

Beyond the bureau there came a curved arch and elegant cornicing which bisected the room and beyond that a lighter, brighter seating area. Normally the array of side tables, sofa and chairs was elegantly symmetrical; today was odder, with several chairs lined up perpendicular to the sofa.

At the end of the sofa, with sunlight from the window washing over her face, sat Kate. Her legs were stretched out in front of her on the chairs, cushioned by bosomy pillows. Lying along the length of the sofa, his long legs hanging off the end, a book in his hand and his head in her lap, was Anthony. 

With the stacks of books on top of the bureau, the arch in the middle of the room and the peculiar arrangement of furniture, it was perfectly possible to have an excellent view from the half-opened door, while remaining obscured. Violet, Eloise and Colin, peering through from a darker corner of the hall, were barely visible. 

It scarcely would have mattered. Anthony and Kate seemed so completely engrossed in themselves that they would not have noticed if the entire ton had leapt out from behind the sofa. Kate rested one hand on his chest, while with the other she was slowly stroking his hair. Her own hair was loose. One rich, silky lock was being idly twirled through his fingers by Anthony, his face quietly victorious. She had protested that she couldn’t be bothered with being coiffed and trussed up with hair pins for no real reason, but he suspected – correctly – the truth: she had left it down for him.

As the voyeurs watched, Kate murmured something; without looking, Anthony passed her the book, finding her hand instantly, then rested his arm along the length of her uninjured leg, as casually and comfortably as if it were an extension of his own body.

“They’re so – ”, Eloise began to mutter, then realised she did not know how to say what she wanted to express. She did not even know quite what it was.

Violet nodded. Her wisdom was greater and she understood. Even so, she took refuge in irrelevance. “She has such lovely hair. I never noticed before.”

Colin, standing behind them, said nothing at all, transfixed and suddenly almost shy.

Had they visited any earlier, they could not possibly have remained hidden. Anthony had toiled at the bureau from before lunch until well into the afternoon. The accounts were time consuming but mechanical, while he actively enjoyed addressing the queries raised in the batch of estate correspondence he’d had collected from Bridgerton House the previous day. On one or two matters he had consulted Kate, sketching the outlines of the difficulty, grateful for her questions and intrigued by the solutions she posited. She had no knowledge of crop rotations or the impact of protectionism, however rural life was not so different in Kent from Somerset. Her keen intelligence and different eye had furnished her with knowledge he did not possess about life for those whose paths through it were less gilded.

As the hours passed however, he turned to his Parliamentary papers with a sigh. The Corn Laws debate rumbled on and on. As he made marginal annotations, the print shrunk to dark specks and the little glimpses he took of her – first writing her own correspondence, then refining the rough pencilled outlines for a painting for Edwina and at last reading – increased and lengthened. 

He’d be content to spend all his days like this. Not sat at this particular desk perhaps, although it was better than some dainty little thing fit only for penning thank you notes for afternoon teas; he’d prefer the order of a study. But to have her there in the room or know that she was only a room away where he could seek her advice, grumble and have his ill-humour laughed out of him or find his rest in her arms, as she found hers in his. In this moment, in this place, it was perfect.

Better still to be at Aubrey Hall. He could envisage it so easily: emerging from his study, good work done and done well, to find her. She’d be in the library perhaps, a place full of strange, tender memories for them; or in that small drawing room she’d taken such a fancy to when they visited immediately after their marriage; or in the garden, interrogating the gardeners about plans for spring, mud on her fingers and a flush on her cheeks. He’d watch her revel in the flowers – not cut blooms trapped with ribbons into bouquets for her sister, but vibrant, living things. He’d given her flowers once long ago, at the start of things. Delicate pink roses – did she recall? He’d done it to irritate, under a veneer of charm. Yet that look – that wistful pang in her eyes when she gave her begrudging thanks to the one man who’d remembered her also – had twisted in him. It remained, while every reaction of her sister was immediately forgotten. Should he have realised even from that? A small bouquet of pink roses. He gave her the whole garden now. Hers, all hers.

Then they’d walk, or ride perhaps, over the estate. They could walk as they pleased, the sun on their faces or the wind in their hair, no heed paid to stupid rules about bonnets or hats. It would be beautiful in autumn, it always was: a kaleidoscope of rich browns, deep reds and triumphant gold. Let them get through these weeks. Let her be well, please dear God, and be as strong and vital as she ever was, with the same loose-limbed magic in her walk. Let her heal and let them get through the one or two social obligations they must endure for friendship’s sake and stymying curiosity. Then let them go and find their joy in the home he loved and which had enchanted her. Let them cherish one another there, away from bucks and idiots, ninnies and bitches. 

It was as though he had taken the dear pocket watch and wound it backwards until he found what he’d dreamt of for himself half a lifetime ago, before grief and responsibility capsized his life. 

When they had visited Aubrey Hall after their marriage, they had been discovering companionship, even their enjoyment of each other’s bodies confined within the walls he had made. He’d shown her the estate of which she was mistress in order to introduce her to a role. How false that seemed now. Every foot of that place had formed him, each step was rich with memories. To be there now. To be her lover completely in that beloved place, in mind and soul as well as body, giving her his past as well as whatever future they had. The paths he had walked with his father. The tracks where he’d ridden with his siblings. The old treehouse, long rotted now, but things could be rebuilt, could they not? The pool where he had learnt to swim with his brothers. He’d been there last the day before his father died. Benedict and Colin had splashed and frolicked for only a while, but he had carried on lolling and carving through the water by himself. Could he go back at last? Would she join him, could she? Although his sisters had learned to swim, so many girls did not. She was brave and fearless though; would she not find the same delight in subduing an element not their own? Not in the autumn perhaps; that was too cold. Next summer maybe, with the sun high above them making the droplets shimmer on her skin as she clasped her arms around his neck.

“What on earth are you thinking about? You have the strangest look on your face.”

Anthony started, as Kate recalled him from his daydream. “Nothing,” he stumbled. “Something at Aubrey Hall we could do sometime. I’m rather tired,” he added inconsequentially.

Kate’s eyes narrowed. From the lambent glaze in his expression, she did not believe it was nothing. But she was slowly learning this man; she simply held out her hand. “Join me, then.” Twisting herself on the sofa, she changed position, gesturing to him to bring over some chairs. She edged her leg from the sofa onto them while he eased the pillows underneath, then invited him beside her. And putting her arms around him, she gently pulled him back towards her until his shoulders rested by her thigh and his head lay in her lap.

She stroked his face affectionately, as he looked up at her. Then, after trailing her hand to his chest and lightly kissing him, she picked up her book and started to read again. 

He often held her in his arms or against his chest or sat her on his lap. At first it was unnerving to find the roles reversed. Mistresses had fondled him sometimes in post-coital lassitude or at the start of a seduction, while his mother and siblings were not averse to hugging him, but he could not remember simply being held like this, no agenda or expectation, since he was a little boy. 

Suddenly extraordinarily serene, Anthony rescued his own book from the table beside her and picked up where he had stopped the previous day. 

Originally he’d started reading it to humour her, although he was curious about how it had cheered her so much in the first week of her convalescence when her pain was acute and constant. She challenged him to read it: she’d read it before and admired it. Rather to his surprise, he liked it immensely and tried to ignore Kate’s smugness every time he picked it up. While the society might be slightly different, the Ambitious Mamas parading their Darling Daughters in pursuit of Determined Bachelors was uncomfortably familiar. 

The machinations of the plot did not surprise him in the slightest, but the characters amused him greatly. He felt a certain sympathy with the heroine’s father, who fled to his study rather than face the inane matchmaking of his family’s monstrous regiment of women. The hero was a dolt, whose behaviour to the heroine was utterly graceless, still Anthony could not deny the lady author had drawn a most convincing picture of a type of man he knew. She struck him as being some waspish cousin of Whistledown, wittier and crueller perhaps, but clever and profound as well. 

And so they sat in companionable quiet, she with her book, he with his. Occasional chuckles from one of them elicited indulgent grins in the other. This was until he reached the novel’s mid-point and a proposal scene of exceptional haplessness. When Anthony thought back on their betrothal, over-reacting to a bee, Mrs Featherington salivating over him having ‘his mouth on her bubbies’ (what an extraordinarily vulgar term that was. The memory still made him shudder), him casually announcing they would marry, Kate wailing in protest and the two of them fleeing to the gazebo to passionately embrace until they were half mad from what they unleashed in one another, was fairly dreadful. Set against the catastrophic awfulness in the novel, it was perhaps not so bad. 

He started to shake with laughter, until Kate poked him in the ribs to find out what had instigated the minor earthquake rumbling alongside her. Once he explained, she rattled off her favourite lines from the scene, after which it was a short hop to him quizzing her on ‘what comes next’ with increasingly absurd competitiveness and Kate demanding to double check every answer.

Kate looked up from the book and scowled. “I missed out a chunk in the middle and some of it is in the wrong order!” Anthony shrugged. “Why on earth did you say that I was correct?” She raised an eyebrow. “Could it be that you are losing your competitive edge, my lord?” 

Anthony grinned. “Your prize had certain fringe benefits for me, Kate. That being the case, I decided it should be bestowed, perhaps as an effort prize.”

She had been tousling his hair with the hand which wasn’t holding the book; at that comment she stopped tousling and slapped the top of his head.

“I could bestow it again?” he offered, his own hands snaking into her hair and pulling her face towards him.

“And take your benefits again? That would be entirely acceptable,” she murmured, closing the remaining inches between them. The kiss was languorous, decadent. 

“You’re enjoying it, aren’t you?” she asked.

“This? Very much so.”

Kate giggled. “I meant the book!” She gave an appreciative little sigh as he kissed her again. “You didn’t think you would, did you?”

“No, I didn’t,” he admitted. “Or at any rate I didn’t think that I would be impressed by it. It’s very sharp though; I concede you were right.”

“I usually am.” They both laughed. “I suspected you might find some things in it which had a certain familiarity.”

“Deranged mothers in pursuit of reluctant men?”

“While gossips watch and report every move on the local Marriage Mart? Something like that. I was thinking more along the lines of arrogant, dictatorial aristocrat, – ”

“Devilishly handsome though.”

“ – rude, moderately anti-social – ”

“Only moderately? A compliment of sorts.”

“ – refuses to dance – ”

“Prefers his toes unpounded by a sister who believes she is a guard dog.”

“ – proud, acerbic – ”

“Intelligent. Discerning.”

“ – rich, with a beautiful estate – ”

“Extremely rich, I think, and didn’t you call it enchanting?”

“ – learning a few home truths from a lady – ”

“Young harridan.”

“ – of wit – ”

“Incapable of ever not talking.”

“ – and wisdom – ”

“Most opinionated woman in England.”

“ – principled and with unwavering moral rectitude – ”

“What a pity.” A guffaw from Kate, a snigger from Colin and an intake of breath from Violet. 

“ – even if she is only tolerable – ”

“With the finest of most beautiful fine eyes which a man could gladly spend every evening gazing into,” said Anthony fiercely. Kate’s lips pursed wryly. He had been good to the words he’d said on their wedding night when she’d started to cry: he had never repeated the speech nor alluded to her wobble. But she saw how frequently he complimented and reassured her and how swiftly he leapt up, even in jest, to be her champion against that most brutal critic: herself.

“ – about what being an honourable gentleman really means,” she concluded.

“Yes,” said Anthony lazily. “There were certain familiarities.”

“Shall I nickname you Darcy from now on?”

Anthony protested immediately. “He’s appalling, Kate! A complete prig. If he were a member at White’s, you’d pretend you were asleep to avoid being stuck with him for the afternoon. And that proposal is despicable. Man should be taken out and thrashed.” 

Colin started. He was not sure what was more disconcerting: the fact that Anthony had used identical words to his or the fact that the person using the identical words was Anthony.

“Relations with a position in life below my own? Pompous fool. If he were truly noble, he would not belittle good people of other ranks.” Kate snorted and Anthony looked rather sheepish. “I am also sounding like a pompous fool now, aren’t I?”

“A little,” she conceded. “However I remember a man who rescued a girl from humiliation and escorted her into dinner instead of a countess or whatever it was, and so you are forgiven.”

“Poor Penelope. Who would not have done the same for her?

“Most men, Anthony. In fact, I cannot think of any who would, except you or maybe your brothers.” He squirmed. He always did when she praised him and it gave her a naughty satisfaction to praise him more, simply for the pleasure of watching him wriggling in embarrassment. 

“She’s a sweet girl. And Cressida Cowper is not. I must try hard not to call her Miss Bingley the next time I see her.” 

“That’s most unkind to Miss Bingley, Anthony.” They both chuckled, then Kate sighed. “I wish Penelope’s life were not so difficult.”

“It cannot be easy with that dreadful mother of hers. Still,” he added, taking her left hand and kissing the rings he had placed upon it, “thank God for Mrs Featherington – ”

She squeezed his hand. “ – And thank God for the bee.” 

It was too glib to be anything other than a domestic mantra. Violet smiled quietly to herself.

“Would you prefer the company of Mr Wickham then?” 

Kate asked the question hoping to mock him for his poor judgment once he had finished the book, but her husband was astute. “Good God, no. Man’s clearly a liar and a complete cad. If someone like that came sniffing around one of the girls, I’d set the dogs on him. Not that one obviously,” he added, gesturing at Newton, happily snoozing and emitting the occasional doggy snore.

“Most unfair! Poor Newton! He once protected us from ‘a most pernicious suitor’.”

“Yes, and ‘men were deceivers ever’. That was from one my father’s favourite plays. You will not catch me out with that, Kate! I am perfectly serious though: I have seen enough of Wickhams and wouldn’t let them in the same room as the girls if I could help it.” 

“What would you do then if one of them did come sniffing around as you elegantly put it or one of the girls got herself mixed up with one? Seize your duelling pistols and go chasing off to wherever they were, with Benedict in tow?

“Yes, probably. Colin too perhaps. Maybe even Gregory. Possibly Gregory instead of Colin,” he mused. “The pup’s got an impressive amount of fight in him, whereas Colin would just sit around eating and trying to find someone to charm.”

Eloise grinned and raised an eyebrow at Colin, whose sang-froid momentarily seemed less easy. 

Kate laughed. “I doubt it is very likely that we will have to worry about that.”

“Hm,” said Anthony, clearly dubious. “I wish I had your optimism. Not Francesca and Edwina, but I wouldn’t put it past Eloise to go running off and do something mad and God help us with Hyacinth.”

Colin beamed broadly back at his sister, who now appeared somewhat boot-faced.

“She’s eleven. I doubt we’ll need to worry about her suitors for the best part of a decade.”

“Yes.” Anthony’s face tightened. 

Kate cradled his head and lent down to kiss him swiftly on the forehead. “We will worry about it in a decade, Anthony.” She ran her thumb over his cheekbone until he looked up. “Thank you for counting Edwina among the girls.”

“It’s nothing. Whatshername in the book, the gentle one, Jane, reminds me of Edwina. I hope Bagwell has a bit more backbone than Bingley, even if he can’t drive.”

Kate was not to be side-tracked. “It’s not nothing. You don’t know what it is to be a woman in a household of women, with modest means, no way to augment them and your closest male relative is a cousin you hardly know. From that to a dowry which will let her marry for love and your protection just as if she were one of your sisters. It’s everything, my love.”

Was that a flush starting to rise on Anthony’s cheeks? His answer was steady enough. “She is my sister now, Kate. Besides, I shouldn’t be too happy about it if I were you. By the same token, you’re now lumbered with my lot.”

“That’s hardly a trial.” 

Anthony raised a very sceptical eyebrow. “Enjoy your delusions, Wife. The time will come when you’ll be cursing each and every one of them. They’re still behaving around you at the moment.”

“I noticed that during Pall Mall,” she observed drily.

“It wasn’t one of my parents’ children who pitched the ball into the lake.” 

“This time.”

“Touché. Sometimes I wonder how my mother produced such dreadful offspring.” 

“Maybe it’s the influence of that atrocious head of the family?” She twinkled at him, then squealed as he tickled her. “It must be,” she continued, “as your mother is wonderful. And an exceptional mother. Alarmingly exceptional actually.”

“She used to be the most exceptional of mothers. Then we began reaching marriageable age and she became absolutely terrifying. Wellington could learn a few things from her about tactics.” He smirked. “I cannot wait to see Benedict and Colin squirming next season.” 

“Didn’t you say, not forty-eight hours before we were married, that there was nothing you wouldn’t do for your mother?”

“Perhaps,” Anthony smiled. “Didn’t you promise you wouldn’t tell anyone?”

“Perhaps.” She smiled back warmly. “But that was before you started running her down as though she were Mrs Bennet.”

“Heaven forfend.”

“Wait till the second half!”

Anthony recoiled. “Worse even than my mother in a ballroom full of eligible maidens? I’m not sure I can bear to read the rest now. Do I even need to? Let me guess: the obnoxious dolt becomes marginally less obnoxious, the woman with all the opinions decides he isn’t such a terrible person and they marry?” He twisted his head round, a quirk on his lips. “Strangely recognisable, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Although if you want to be referred to as an obnoxious dolt I’ll happily oblige you. I did promise to obey you, Husband, after all.”

“Chance would be a fine thing.”

Ignoring him, Kate continued. “And you won’t be calling him a dolt by the end. You won’t. You’ll admire him. You’ll like him.”

“That I sincerely doubt.”

“You doubted you’d like the book in the first place,” she pointed out, not unreasonably. 

“That doesn’t mean I will suddenly develop an affection for prigs. A fat wallet and a handsome face have decidedly less impact on me.”

Kate groaned in exasperation, “It’s not about that!” Then she commanded, “Go and bring me the second volume. It’s on that table.”

“Ever your willing slave,” he grumbled. But he got up nonetheless, dipping to tickle the bare toes of her splinted leg as he passed by and, without even breaking his stride, quickly circling around to raise his eyebrows at her before ambling away to the side table. 

He moved like a cat, her husband. She had thought it sometimes when they were in bed together, his slow seductions lithe and feline. Even his walk exuded a physical grace she knew she did not possess. He sauntered back and, seemingly in one fluid movement, dropped the book in her hands, a kiss on her lips, his fingers through her hair and then himself back on the sofa.

“What do you want it for anyway?”

She started rifling through the book. “To find a section which will prove that he isn’t a dolt or obnoxious and that you’re being unfair.”

“You can’t skip to the end. That’s cheating.”

“It’s only a few paragraphs. Besides, I thought you liked cheating.”

“Only in ball games against relatives.”

“Where is it?” She wrinkled up her nose in concentration and flicked through the pages even faster.

“It can’t be that memorable if you can’t even find it.”

“Be quiet, you!” Her eyes lit up as she found one section and marked it, before pursuing the other hideaway extract. “Now, come on, where are you? Where have you gone?”

“Do you normally talk to books?” She stuck her tongue out at him, much to his amusement. “I’d not noticed it before. Should I summon Dr McKenzie once more?”

“Found it!” she declared. “If you read these parts you’ll see that he’s not appalling at all and is actually rather heroic.” 

“Kate, I’m not going to start reading the ending.”

“It won’t spoil it. You’ve already worked out the ending! It’s not about what happens. There’s more, so much more, to him and to what Miss Austen is trying to say. There’s a depth to it I don’t think I understood the first time I read it, but I see it now. So,” she handed him the book and pointed out the places, “read from there to there – and from there to there. You’ll see what I mean. And that I am right and you are wrong.” 

“This is going to be the story for the rest of my life, isn’t it? Being commanded to do things so you can prove that you’re right.” 

“If you’re wise.” Then she looked at him and smiled. It was that smile, the one so sweet and winsome it never failed to make him dissolve. Whether she knew it or not – and he did not think she realised – that smile so bewitched him that had she ordered him to read the entire novel out loud from the end backwards, he would have acquiesced without a word. “Please read it, Anthony. You’ll see what I mean and you will like it, I’m certain. You’ll be completely satisfied.” 

“Completely satisfy me?” observed Anthony, his lips twitching. One eyebrow arched so high it disappeared under the messy fringe, while he contorted his face into an absurd leer. “How irresistible. I’m glad something is going to.”

Kate chuckled, then sighed. Anthony had been exceptionally gentle and generous and indeed inventive in his ministrations to her since her accident. She marvelled at the skill of his lips, tongue and hands; her eyes were truly opened. But she desperately yearned for more: to be united again in their deepest intimacy. A moment a few days earlier had not ended well. They were hungry, so hungry for one another and she had coaxed him to try, despite his misgivings that she was still too fragile and vulnerable. In her impatience she moved clumsily and was left wincing with pain. Predictably, this ignited what she privately called Anthony’s lunatic over-protective streak. Once his initial panic had passed, he played the debonair rake and jokily apologised that his irresistibility meant she couldn’t be trusted around him. Nonetheless, he was clear: terrified at the thought of her in distress, he declared that until she was fully better, although he would use every trick he knew to bring her pleasure, they couldn’t consummate their relationship fully. 

If one thing was stronger than his rampant libido, it was his stubborn streak. She hoped his resolve might weaken as her mobility increased, but she was not confident: a more obstinate man had never lived. In a strange way it moved her deeply. The day he married her, he had refused to consider any delay out of his lust; out of his love, he would now wait for weeks.

She did notice that he had doubled his fencing bouts with Benedict though and that he had started sparring with Simon in the boxing ring.

Meanwhile she longed for him, to feel once again the waves of muscle in his back when she clutched him or to burn below his searing look when he was poised above her, about to enter her. Every fraction of her skin became suddenly more sensitive in anticipation. To have him above her, below her, reaching his climax within her; obliterated and transcendent, their eyes locked on each other, and they’d shatter and be renewed together. What a little wanton he had made of her. She had known nothing of this, beyond the crudest biological facts, a few months ago. When she had arrived in London, desire was an unknown book in a dark corner of a dangerous library.

Yet was it wanton? She did not think so anymore. He had opened the book for her, watched her unfurl each page and helped her decipher the strange poetry of this new language of a new world. It was not the act itself, passionate and playful, exuberant and worshipful as it could be. What she ached for was to love him, only him, and let her body reveal the newly confessed depths of their hearts. They traded in quips, their affection shown in teasing, but the words to express how much she felt, and how profoundly, often seemed elusive. Their bodies had always been so much more eloquent, understanding from the beginning how utterly right they were for one another. 

He had made a fortress of his self-sufficiency. His intelligence and power were weapons he wielded to keep the world at bay. And within his tower he had been stalked by grief and menaced by convictions he had confessed to none but her; frozen in isolation yet burning with loneliness. She longed to see him smile, to hear him laugh – not the debonair manners he affected in a ballroom, but simple, artless happiness – and, through her touch, for him to know how much he was beloved. For he was hers, to cherish and protect; she claimed him and his pain would never be his to suffer alone again.

“Thirty-seven days,” she said ruefully.

“Thirty-seven days.” 

Her hand slithered down to his waistcoat pocket and pulled out his pocket watch. “Thirty-six days and – ” she checked for clarification, “twenty-three hours.” She returned the watch to the pocket and left her hand in there as well. Mischief crept back into her eyes. Batting her eyelashes, she mustered up the most vacuous simper she could and added, “My lord.” 

Anthony was convulsed with laughter. “My lord?” he mimicked. “Wife, in thirty-six days and twenty-three hours I intend to be your king, emperor and god.”

Had it not been for their shrieks of merriment filling the room, it would have been impossible for the viscount and viscountess not to have heard Colin. He was already shaking and clutching his side, when a quick look at his mother’s face hurtled him into paroxysms only made silent by stuffing his hand into his mouth. 

Violet seemed struck by temporary paralysis, apart from the scarlet colour sprinting across her face. It was one thing to propound the charming notion of reformed rakes making the best husbands, entirely something else to be confronted with a mental image of that reality when it was one’s own son. 

Even that might not have been sufficient to tip Colin over the edge had it not been for one more thing. While Violet blushed and Colin was near collapse, Eloise’s face was screwed up in puzzlement. 

Then she whispered.

“Mama, what on earth are they talking about?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slight change in tone and perspective in this chapter, but the Bridgertons outside the door will return more strongly in the next chapter. Couldn't resist the To Sir Philip With Love allusion.


End file.
